


Barbverse Drabbles

by Rahirah



Series: The Barbverse [138]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Drabble Collection, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-08
Updated: 2019-04-08
Packaged: 2020-01-06 23:31:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 42
Words: 4,261
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18398585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rahirah/pseuds/Rahirah
Summary: Barbverse Drabbles, in more or less chronological order.





	1. Saturday Night

**Author's Note:**

> These drabbles are set in the same universe as "A Raising In the Sun" et al. They take place over the course of the series, and are collected in roughly chronological order.
> 
> Chapter 1: Characters: Giles, Dawn  
> Setting: S5  
> Notes: Promptfic - Giles, Dawn, and the Bay City Rollers

"Cream, Hendrix, Morrissey... Jeez, I'd rather be tortured by a hell god," grumbled Dawn, pawing through Giles's record collection for the sixth time. "Don't you have anything good?"

"By your standards, no." Giles glanced at his watch. "Perhaps you should try to get some sleep until your sister returns."

Dawn ignored him. "What's this one?"

Giles fumbled for his glasses. Tartan trousers. Oh, dear God. "Your mother lent me that, the - er - "

"This was Mom's?" Dawn's fingers caressed the faded sleeve. "Can we play it?"

 _Not if you value my sanity._ But... "I suppose one song couldn't hurt."

**End**


	2. Go For the Gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G   
> Pairing/characters: Clem, Spike  
> Setting: BtVS S6ish, could be either Barbverse or canon

Clem eyes his opponent across the shadowy expanse of the table and flexes his hand, feeling claws scrape against wood. He's been here before, his opponent's face a mystery in the blue-white flicker of the television. This time, it's going to be different. His wrinkled paw lashes out with demon speed, but his opponent's even faster. Hands meet and wrestle for the prize, emerging fuzzed with gold. Clem opens his hand...only crumbs.

His opponent grins and licks his fingers, long pink tongue cleaning each one with care. Spike's an OK guy, but he sure does hog the Cheetos.


	3. The Sleep of Reason

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating:R  
> Pairing: B/S  
> Setting:Barbverse, post-NE or BtVS S6 circa Dead Things

Sometimes she dreams. Not the Slayer kind. Ted, tumbling downstairs. Instead of wheels and gears, there's blood and shattered bone. Ben looks up at her. She grinds his face in with her heel. Faceless, gut-stabbed knights topple off the lurching caravan to a slow-motion Peckinpah ruin.

He doesn't tell her it's all right. He's learned that much. He holds her close, gives her silent leave to weep, here in the dark where no one else can see. She curls and quiets to a gentler sleep in his arms.

He never tells her they sound like sweet dreams to him.

End


	4. A Girl's Best Friend

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valentine's Day drabble

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing: B/S  
> This story takes place in the same universe as "A Raising in the Sun" et. al. MORE SCHMOOP! RUN! RUN WHILE YOU STILL CAN!

Blood-red roses, sin-dark chocolate, and sparklies – for a creature of the night, Spike’s a traditional kind of guy. Not that she minds; in certain things, she’s a traditional kind of girl. She fixes glittering diamond teardrops in each ear, pins up the waves of tawny gold he so loves to take down, tucks a single dusky rosebud in her cleavage, palms a handful of whiskey-laced truffles to feed the guy with the get-out-of-calories-free card. Trades a conspirator’s grin with her reflection. One more thing…

Handcuffs jingle round one finger. Time for Spike to get his present.


	5. Dangerous

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG  
> Pairing: B/S  
> Setting: Barbverse, Post-Necessary Evils

The flash of his eyes beneath black silk lashes, the slow wicked burn of his smile, the strength of his hands matched against her own--these are the things she desires.

His courage and his loyalty, his joie de vivre and his bull-headed determination, his razor tongue and his tender heart--these are the things she loves.

The lighting-strike of his temper, the ivory glint of his fangs, the savage economy of motion as he snaps a neck, clean--these are the things she guards.

How awful for them both, she thinks, if she’d never learned to tell the difference.


	6. A Little Dab 'll Do Ya

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing: B/S  
> Rating: G  
> Summary: It's that discussion every mixed couple has.   
> Notes: A "Stump The Author" drabble for Angearia, who asked for Buffy, Spike, and personal styling choices.

"I would kill for naturally curly hair," Buffy said, deft fingers freeing soft, springy brown waves from their Brylcreem prison. "And what do you do? De-curlify it!"

"Yeh, well, your mum didn't keep you in ringlets and pinafore for two bloody months after your cousin was breeched," Spike grumbled. "Wanker never let me hear the end of it. And if you breathe a word of that to anyone, I'll..."

"Bite me?" she teased, tweaking a curl. "Oooh. Scary."

"Shave my head."

"OK, credible threat."

Spike grinned. "Love, never go up against a vampire when hair products are on the line."


	7. As Seen On TV

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing: Buffy/Spike  
> Rating: R

"You've read about it, you've heard about it, you've downloaded the video! Now experience the real thing! Yes, it's Spike's cock, equipped with patented repeat action! Accessories include: Foreskin, one, strokeable; testicles, two, lickable; pubic hair, tweakable. But wait, there's more! Act now and you can receive Spike's cock complete with its very own Spike attached! Now how much would you pay? Size and color may vary, hair gel not included, leather coat for display model only, void where prohibited–"

"Slayer, have I ever told you you're completely daft?"

"Duh. I'm having sex with you, aren't I?"

"Got a point."

End


	8. More Bite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dawn can cook! Sort of.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for Stultiloquentia, who wanted ridiculous sandwiches. The story takes place in the same universe as "Raising In the Sun," "Necessary Evils," and "A Parliament of Monsters." It's set some time after NE.

Buffy peeked between her fingers as her sister took a lumpy packet wrapped in wax paper from the freezer. "Do I even want to ask?"

"Pastrami and pistachio ice cream sandwich." Dawn set her creation down on a plate and began peeling the wax paper off. "Experimental, but I think it's got promise."

Buffy shuddered. "More of a threat."

"You? No adventure in your soul." Dawn turned on Spike. "Wanna nibble? Wait, that came out way wrong." She watched anxiously as he took a bite, chewed, swallowed. "Verdict?" 

A long, thoughtful pause. Spike licked his lips. "Needs more mustard."


	9. What's In A...?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing: Buffy/Spike  
> Rating: PG

While he lived, his name went unremarked as any other mundane detail of his life. When he died, it became everything he despised about himself. He added ‘the Bloody’ within a week; changed it to Spike within a year. No one has time for this, William, and he’s fumbling for words, thrust back to a time when a man’s Christian name on a woman’s lips was an intimacy as great as the marriage bed. 

When she calls him William now, her voice sharp with annoyance or trembling with passion, he thinks perhaps it’s not such a bad name, after all. 

 

End


	10. Second Helpings

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing: B/S  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Author’s notes: Barbverse, but it would work perfectly well as post-NFA, too.

Didn’t take a genius to see fretting put Buffy off her feed. It was a point of pride for Spike she was nicely rounded these days, plush curves over steely Slayer muscle. They’d both sleeked up since he moved in - his mission, wasn’t it, ensuring she never fit into size 00 jeans again? Not easy, considering Slayer metabolism, but he’d spent a century cozening Dru to eat up. Least he didn’t have to deliver Buffy’s meals alive and kicking.

“That was fantastic.” Buffy snuggled closer. “Hey. You hungry? I’m starving.”

‘Course, the best part was working up an appetite.

END


	11. Valence

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing: Buffy/Spike  
> Rating: R

There's supposed to be rules, right? Ticky boxes to check. Boy/girl. Top/bottom. Strange/charm. Something like that, anyway. 

Instead their sex life's like an Abbott and Costello routine: Who's on top? Is it her, because he's the one chained to the headboard with her hands on his cock and her tongue up his ass? Is it him, because his burnt-sugar-and-whiskey voice makes her shiver, demanding she lick him, suck him, fuck him harder as he growls 180-proof endearments into her ear?

What is she? The only answer that matters, when she's tangled up in sweaty purring vampire, is Buffy.

End


	12. Name Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Pairing: B/S  
> Author’s notes: a post-wedding Barbverse drabble

Xander’s jaw dropped. “Pratt?” 

“It’s a perfectly good old English name,” Buffy said defensively. “It means ‘cunning and astute.’ Or possibly ‘meadow.’ And anyway, we’re going to hyphenate.”

“I’m going with ‘meadow.’” Xander ducked Spike’s half-hearted swipe. “If it’s such a great name, how come the Fangmeister here kept it a deep dark secret for a century?”

“No secret, just none of your business,” Spike growled. “’Sides, ‘The Bloody’ strikes more terror.”

“So it’s basically all a marketing ploy?” An evil gleam entered Xander’s eyes. “I wonder what Angel’s real name is?”

Spike smirked. “Now that one will cost you.”

End


	13. Rules of the Game

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Spike  
> Rating: G  
> Author's notes: Spike's always been a gambler.

He knows this was easier, once. It helps when he thinks of it as a game - there's no reason a flush beats two of a kind, after all; that's just the way the game works. He knows the rules, but the principles behind them are ungraspable as sand. So he plays, and hopes to break even. When he wins, it's as much luck as skill. There's times he wants nothing more than to throw over the board and rip out the throats of the other players. But there's some prizes you can't win by cheating, and she's one of them.


	14. Invitation to the Dance

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing: Buffy/Spike  
> Rating: PG13

The languid sway of bodies is a conversation in rhythm: Spike's shoulder firm and cool under her cheek, scratchy-soft cotton, the easy play of muscle beneath, the pressure of his hands, the invitation of his half-hard cock. If she looked up, she'd see his eyes half-lidded and his lips half-parted, totally absorbed in the moment, totally absorbed in her. Maybe that's why she can step outside the moment, try to remember it perfect and whole, before plunging back below the surface of sound and scent and touch.

Metaphors are great and all, but sometimes you can't beat the actual dancing.


	15. Zap, Pow, Bang!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters/Pairing: Buffy/Spike  
> Rating: PG  
> Notes: Barbverse. Takes place immediately after “In A Yellow Wood” and right before "Morning After." This drabble was inspired by developments in S9 of the Buffy comics, but there are no actual comics spoilers within.

Buffy remembers long hot summers in L.A, her and Dawn reading Dad’s stash of old comic books in the garage. Cool gritty concrete against her belly, musty newsprint crackling in her fingers. Caped men and spandex women leaped across the pages, yellow, blue, and red. The covers screamed, Not a dream! Not a robot! Not an imaginary story! But when the page turned, it was never real.

Now Spike sleeps beside her, and Lizard Baby sleeps within. (She’ll think about a real name. Later.) She lies with her hand on her belly, and wishes she could turn the page.

End


	16. Snack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing: Buffy/Spike  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Notes: A slightly different kind of lunchtime drabble.

Ivory fangs strike hard, sink deep. A twitch, a scream, the small body goes limp. It’s still the kill that sustains him, as much as the blood. Spike sucks at the corpse like a babe at his mother’s breast, drowsy-eyed with bliss. Sigh of satisfaction, sensual flick of tongue, and he’s tossing the still-warm body away with no more thought than a child discarding a popsicle stick.

It’s sexy. It’s horrible. It’s only a ferret. Could have been (once was) a man, a woman, a child. He smiles, lips stained with ruby.

She should hate kissing him.

But she doesn’t.

 

END


	17. Thriller

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing: Buffy/Spike  
> Rating: PG  
> Notes: Quick Halloween promptfic for Harmonyfb, who wanted old movies:

"A piano?" Buffy rummaged through the candy dish. "She's scared of a piano?"

"Hush," Spike replied. "It's an organ. An evil organ."

"Again with the screaming. She's going to drive the ghosts crazy instead of the other way around." She frowned. "Did you eat all the Skittles?"

"Vincent bloody Price, love! Show some respect."

Buffy pouted. "The point of scary movies is for me to go 'Eeek!' and you to cuddle me. Pianos? Not eek-inducing."

"There's an acid bath coming up."

"Oooh." Buffy snuggled up closer. "Sounds promising."

Spike grinned and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Trick and treat."

 

End


	18. What It Isn't

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Buffy/Spike  
> Rating: PG13

Spike's a vampire, not a pussycat. So when they're curled up on the couch, sharing a bucket of wings and a crappy movie, that lazy rumble beneath her cheek? Not a purr. When they break patrol to fuck against the wall of some crumbling tomb, that low-down grrrrrhhhh that turns her thighs to jelly? Not a purr. And when he's sprawled sleepy-eyed and shirtless, their son cradled in his arms, the tame thunder that shakes the whole room? Definitely not a purr.

Buffy can live without knowing exactly what it is, as long as he keeps doing it.

End


	19. Because You Know He Reads It

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PG for intemperate language  
> Dawn, Spike, Buffy

“Oh, please! Like it wasn’t totally obvious they were going to end up together!” Dawn scoffed.

Spike slouched further down into his chair. The glow from the monitor highlighted the arcs of his cheekbones, underlining his scowl. “Never know. Bint could have come to her senses.”

“They were destined! Fated! Theirs was a forever love!”

“Oh, bollocks! A woman worth having doesn’t drop into your lap! You’ve got to work your balls off for her, not ponce around like a – “

Buffy peered around the door. “Dare I ask?”

“ - broody sparkling poof!”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “Twilight spoilers.” 

 

End


	20. Tying the Knot

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing: Buffy/Spike  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Author's Notes: Barbverse. I kid because I love - congratulations, Mr. Marsters. *g* (This drabble was written shortly after James Marsters announced his engagement to his then-girlfriend-later-wife Jasmin. Fandom had quite a lot to say about it.)

"May-December! Where does Aunt Darlene get off?" Buffy scowled, whipping the chains around the bedpost. "She barely knows us! So there's an age difference! Who cares if I'm twenty-six and you're a hundred and fifty-five?"

Spike made a muffled but fervent noise of agreement.

"OK, fine, we should have broken the vampire thing to her sooner - is that collar too tight?" Buffy straddled his hips, surveying his sleek, muscular torso with satisfaction. Yum. "But I'm a grown woman." She tapped his chest with the handle of her riding crop. "And there are no weird power dynamics in this relationship!"

END


	21. Language of Love

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Pairing: B/S  
> Notes: Random trivia: In the nearly one hundred Barbverse stories and drabbles I have written, Buffy has said "I love you" to Spike out loud and in so many words in three of them. (At the time I wrote this drabble. There may be a few more instances now.)

She's no good with words. She speaks with blade-sharp glances, with hard hands that soften when they turn his way. She spells it out in the curl of fingers over his heart, inscribes it on his skin in blood and kisses. It's encoded in the brush of her lips on his cheek, implicit in the weight of her head on his shoulder, the wonder and fear and joy of his hands on her rounding belly.

It's not often she battles the words like the monsters they fight, and subdues them: I love you. 

But she tells him every day.

 

End


	22. Wii Will Rock You

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Spike, Dawn  
> Rating: PG  
> Setting: Barbverse  
> Notes: Promptfic for Framefolly, who wanted video games

"Are we ready yet?"

"Just a sec." Dawn flicked the remote. "First you have to create a Mii."

Spike's expression morphed from impatient to appalled. "Fuck, no!"

"Aw, come on," Dawn adopted her best wheedling tone. "There's boxing. You can virtually punch someone in the face!"

"You know what's even better?" inquired Spike. "Actually punching someone in the face. I could have run down to Willy's and broken some random git's nose in the time it's taken to set this bloody thing up."

"It's got Super Mario Kart."

Spike sighed, stretching out a hand for the remote. "Sign me up."

 

END


	23. Watching Dexter

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing: Buffy/Spike  
> Rating: PG13  
> Notes: It's a valid question.

"So, this bloke...he's the hero of the piece?"

"Well...kind of. He's the main character, anyway."

"Hacks people into cutlets with a chainsaw and has a bloody good time doing it?"

"Yeah... but only really, really bad people who...um..."

"Don't happen to be the main character."

"It's a TV show! Fiction! As in 'opposite of real life!'"

"But he is the hero, yeah? I'm just asking."

"Fine! He's the hero!"

"Right, then. So, pet..."

"What?!"

"Explain to me one more time exactly why I'm not allowed to eat criminals."

"I knew we never should have gotten Showtime."

 

End


	24. Immoral Crisis

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Spike  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Notes: A look inside Barbverse!Spike's head, oh, pretty much any day in his life...

He thinks, sometimes, how it’d be to kill them, as another man might think how it’d be to fuck a passing woman. This one he’d take slow, drawing her death out breath by pleading breath. That one would go hard and fast, in a spray of spunk and blood. He holds the threads of lives in his hands: savors them, measures them, allows them, with lordly condescension, to spin away uncut. There’s power in that - enough, most days, to quiet the uneasy stirring of demonic conscience. He doesn’t have to kill them today. It’s enough to know that he can.

End


	25. Paterfamilias

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters/Pairing: Buffy/Spike  
> Rating: PG13

He's not the world's greatest father. He drinks and smokes and swears and steals and cheats at cards. He'll spoil them rotten one minute and explode the next, demon's temper flaring way too easily. More than once she's found him in the basement, punching his knuckles bloody against the wall in fear-laced fury over what he's almost done.

Daily he wrestles that temper to the ground, picks himself up, grits his teeth and tries again. Because he loves them as he loves her, something all-consuming and terrible. She'd call it demon's love. But she thinks maybe it's just a dad's.


	26. Looks Like Fun

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG-13  
> Setting: Post-Gift AU   
> Pairing: B/S  
> Synopsis: Happy birthday to you!  
> Author's notes: This story takes place in the same universe as "A Raising in the Sun" et. al.

"But I didn't mean to!" Connie wailed. 

"What you meant doesn't matter!" Buffy snapped. "Honey, think about - " She glared at Spike, whose rapt gaze lacked something in the parental reprimand line. "Back me up here!"

Spike tore his eyes away from the flames. "No more playing with lighters, sweetness." 

Buffy handed over the baby with an eyeroll. "Hold Alex. I've got to call our insurance agent. Bill! Stop pestering the firemen!"

Connie sniffled, clinging to Spike's leg. "I'm sorry, Daddy. Your birthday cake needed all its candles."

"So it did." Spike looked down and grinned. "Best birthday prezzie ever!"

End


	27. Like Father...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Buffy/Spike, Clem  
> Notes: A slightly different kind of Father's Day drabble. *g*

Buffy leans over the crib - it's hard to tell the baby from the blanket. "Wow. She's really... wrinkly."

Clem beams. "Isn't she? Her name's Clementina. We're going to call her Tina for short."

"Compliments to the missus," Spike says, tickling Clementina under what Buffy supposes is her chin and quickly yanking his finger back. Apparently baby Clems come fully equipped with those teeth.

"Aww, she's hungry. Here, sweetie!" Clem dangles a live mouse enticingly over Tina's head. Face-tentacles snake out, and mousie disappears with a slurpy crunch. 

Spike winces. "That does it," Buffy whispers. "Never complaining about teething vampires again."

End


	28. The Opposite of Schadenfreude

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing: B/S  
> Rating: G  
> Notes: You know the ones. Those guys.

They make a cute couple. She’s pretty, he’s handsome. Kids just boisterous enough to be charming rather than obnoxious. They exchange smiles across their cartful of healthy, nutritious food. Standing in the checkout line with Alex wailing on her shoulder, Bill and Connie scuffling under the gumball machine to muted, furious accusations of “You!” “No, YOU!” and Spike sulking because she’s cut off his cigarette purchases till Bloody Vengeance Inc. collects on this month’s invoices, Buffy decides she kind of hates them.

“Bet they’re demons,” Spike mutters, following her glance.

Buffy grins. “Definitely slayworthy.” Yeah. That’s why she loves him.

 

END


	29. The Long Program

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Spike/Buffy  
> Rating: PG

"Bloody Slayer," Spike snarled, flinging himself onto the barstool. "Unreasonable, self-righteous bint, thinks she knows everything about sodding everything - gimme a pint, Willy!"

Willy slid a glass of Guinness across the bar and prudently edged away, stationing himself out of finger-breaking range. "Disagreement with the missus?" he asked.

"Only so far a bloke can roll over! Give up killing, fight the good fight - there's a lot I'll do for love, mate, but this?" Spike tossed back half his pint and smashed the glass down on the countertop. "There's no sodding way Lysacek deserved the gold without nailing the quad!"

End


	30. Vanilla

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG-13  
> Characters/pairing: Spike/Buffy  
> Author's notes: Yeah, I don't know either.

A punch in the nose was second base, once, but that was years ago. Never needed many toys, and now, with the kids? Manacles equal awkward questions. Belts and scarves, not so much. Really? They're ordinary. Married-with-children boring. Never mind she could break a normal man without trying; he's slaughtered a thousand normal women - Slayer and vampire, each what the other was born to kill. Their love's a perversion greater than any Kama Sutran unpronounceable. 

Neither's ever mastered the other (hard enough, isn't it, mastering themselves?) Okay, fine, she'll still hurt him. But only when he asks very nicely. 

End


	31. Come To The Dark Side

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Characters/Pairing: Buffy/Spike  
> Notes: Barbverse, but you can imagine it's some closer-to-canon version if you like. I must admit that this was inspired by all the B/A Cookie Day fics I ran across today - no hard feelings, guys, but I cannot let this rampant cookie favoritism go unchallenged. *g*

Spike squats in front of the oven, staring fixedly through the glass. "Are they done yet?"

Buffy glances at the timer. "Another ten minutes."

"M'hungry now."

"Tough. You have to wait till they're baked."

"Says who?" He's on his feet, hand snaking over her shoulder for a lightning raid on the bowl. He pops a batter-covered finger into her mouth before she can object. "Tasty, yeah?"

"Mmf!" She raps his hand with the spoon. "That could be full of... of salmonella. It's completely - " 

He licks his fingers, grinning and unrepentant. 

"Tasty," she admits.

They're still kissing when the timer goes off.

End


	32. Besides That

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Characters: Spike, Xander

“It’s only natural,” Xander said, eyeing the last remaining doughnut. “You hit forty, you put on a few pounds.”

Spike rolled his eyes and nabbed the pastry. “The goal, Harris, is to limit it to a few.”

“Fine. What I don’t get,” Xander grumbled, as Spike removed temptation from his grasp, “Is how the heck you manage to eat like that and stay in shape.” 

“Ten-mile run, two-hour workout, half-hour sparring match, three hours tramping ‘round Sunnydale taunting enormous demons who want to kill me,” Spike mumbled around a mouthful of powdered sugar.

Xander sighed. “Well, yeah. But besides that.”

END


	33. Being Marilyn Munster

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: All OCs, all the time  
> Rating: G  
> Notes: "Stump the Author" drabble for Fenchurche, who requested the Summers-Pratt children, slumber party.

"Mom says I can invite five." Alex Summers-Pratt chewed on his pencil, the awesome responsibility wrinkling his brow. "So Danny, Tina..."

"Aw, not Clementina!" Randy groused. "Why do you gotta invite her?"

"She's my friend. What's wrong with Tina?" Alex's fingers tightened on the pencil. He felt a little sick to his stomach. If Randy said something about wrinkly skin or pointy teeth or the stuff in her lunchbox that moved, he'd... he'd do something. Pointy teeth ran in his family, too.

Randy pointed to the sign on the clubhouse door. "You know the rules. No girls allowed."

 

END


	34. And Far With the Brave I Have Ridden

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters/Pairing: Spike, OCs (S/B implied)  
> Rating: PG  
> Author's notes: Barbverse. Memorial Day drabble.

Every year, there's parades and flags. Every year, Dad looks on, a sardonic glint in his eyes - humans. But every year, when the sun sets and the front porch is blue with shadows, he kicks back on the steps, lights a cigarette, cracks open a beer, and reminisces. 

"Only war I ever fought in," Dad says, "There wasn't anyone on my side much worth remembering. So I keep in mind the ones I fought against. Not gonna tell you I'm sorry I won and they lost, but every warrior's death deserves a story. 

"The first one's name was Xin Rong..."

END


	35. In Memorium

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters/Pairing: Buffy/Spike  
> Rating: PG  
> Notes: Barbverse.

They go to the cemetery after sundown. The children kneel in the grass, arranging carnations for the grandmother they never knew, while she and Spike stand watchful against the dead who rest less peacefully than Joyce Summers. 

Spike envies her this: her mother, at least, has a grave to lay flowers upon. Joyce is no less dead for being clay instead of dust, but the story of how Anne Pratt died, and who killed her, is one they don't tell the children. 

In the end, Buffy thinks as they walk homeward, it's those who don't lie here that haunt us.

 

End


	36. Woodstock

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Spike, Alex (OC)  
> Rating: PG  
> Summary: Promptfic for Gillo, who wanted Spike telling one of the kids what Woodstock was really like. A tip of the hat to ShipperX for the idea that pre-punk Spike was a Doors fan.

"What was it like?" Spike leaned back and let his Racing Form fall to one knee, glasses sliding down the bridge of his nose. "Half a million brain-dead flower children too stoned to tell their arses from their elbows, crammed into a muddy field with not half enough loos. Dru and I'd come to hear Morrison, and he canceled at the last minute, the sodding bastard. Almost hunted him down and ate him. It was chaos." He gave a nostalgic sigh. "Glorious, bloody chaos."

Alex looked up from his laptop, confused. "But Dad... I'm writing an essay about Charles Schultz."

 

END


	37. Stronger

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Characters: Buffy/Spike  
> Rating: PG13

She likes the fact that Spike's almost as strong as she is... but only almost. She thought that was weird until Spike pointed out it wasn't something most birds got a choice in. He likes that she's stronger, too, but Spike measures himself by the height of the mountain he's scaling. Buffy doesn't have that luxury. Spike's only one vampire; the rest still wait for their one good day. As much as the woman in her relishes his strength, the Slayer relishes subduing it. 

He's the one who dares to surrender, laughing. In some ways, maybe he really is stronger.

End


	38. Any Minute Now

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing: B/S  
> Rating: R  
> Notes: “Stump the Author” drabble for Rowanswhimsy, who asked for Buffy, Spike, and anticipation.

Any minute now, he’ll touch her.

She can hear him, the snake-rustle of cloth on skin, the harsh catch of breath, quickly silenced. She can smell him, cold earth and stale tobacco and old blood. She can feel him, vampire tinglies close, no, even closer. She can see him, painted on the backs of her eyelids in strokes of red and ivory.

He’s right there. Her whole being is focused upon him, one white-hot, pulsing bundle of need. And he wants it as much as she does, she can tell. Any minute now, he’ll break. Touch her.

Any.

Minute.

Now.

 

End


	39. Marching Orders

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing: Connie, Buffy/Spike  
> Rating: G  
> Notes: Ideally, her whole family should just not talk all evening.

“This is really important, so pleeeeease don’t embarrass me!” Ideally, Connie thought, her whole family should just not talk all evening. Good luck with that. “Bill – no one cares what your stupid professor says! Alex, make that face and you’re Ghora chow! Vicki, he doesn’t want to play Barbies! Don’t ask!”

“Should we quarantine Jess?” her mother asked innocently. “Avoid the horrors of baby spit?”

Connie considered. “No, that’s OK. But don’t get all goopy in front of him. Or all vampy!”

“No need, punkin.” There was a suspicious twinkle in her father’s eyes. “Think you’ve got that bit covered.”

 

End


	40. Chains

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: PG  
> Pairing: Buffy/Spike (but see below)  
> Notes: This is Barbverse, natch, but you know, you can close your eyes and pretend it's S/X or S/A or S/whoeverthehell and it will work just as well. *g*

There’s times he feels torn in two, in a way that’s nothing to do with man and demon. There’s part of him lusts for death and glory still, a craving bred deeper far in the bone than mere lust for blood – part of the man that the demon only set free. There’s nights he paces, scenting distant shores on the wind.

When he circles back, it’s of his own will. The lure of hearth and home and loving hearts is just as strong, and the shackles he wears are of his own forging.

And Spike’s always looked good in chains.

End


	41. Touch

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Pairing/characters: Buffy/Spike  
> Rating: PG-13  
> Setting: Drabble and a half.

Mom and Dad touch. Kiss and cuddle, nuzzle and purr, wrestle and laugh and smack each other on the butt. Sometimes it's sweet (curled together on the couch, hands meeting in the popcorn bowl.) Sometimes it's weird (Mom blushing in the dark, Dad collapsed in laughter, "'s only a game, tadpole. No, you'll find someone of your own to play it with when you're a bit older.") Sometimes it's scary (fists clench and eyes flash yellow and Mom says through her teeth, "Let's take this to the basement, William," - and that makes it ok, because then it's sparring.)

At your friend's house, no one ever raises their hands or their voices. The quiet's a relief, at first. Later you come home and hug them both hard, just because. And that night you fall asleep, lulled by the whole house rocking, rocking to the rhythm of your parents' love.

 

End


	42. When the Floods Roll Back

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Characters/Pairing: Buffy/Spike  
> Author's notes: Older!Buffy ponders.

She's always known she wasn't meant to have this life. As she gets older, the dreams are less about what's to come than what might have been. If she'd made the choices a Slayer should have made, loved only the people a Slayer ought to love. Reprimand, or temptation?

Death is her art, her gift. A one-way ticket out of this world came with her calling, gratis. Learning to live in it? That's all been on her dime. Spike never counts the cost, but Buffy wonders sometimes - were those lessons bought too dear?

She'll know when the bill comes due.

 

END


End file.
